Tracking the bond stretching of chiral molecules using photoelectron circular dichroism

In this talk, we propose a bond-length--sensitive probe of the chiral character of a dissociating chiral molecule prepared by a pump pulse.

Using an XUV pulse, the valence electron of the prototypical CHFClBr is ionized by left- or

right-circularly polarized light.

The photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD), the asymmetry between the two

polarizations, is used to illustrate the chiral character of the state as the

bond length changes.

With the data of the PECD at different bond lengths, one can map the pump-probe delays to bond distances.

The XUV pulses can also be shaped using quantum optimal control theory to

maximize the signal at different bond lengths.

The ionization dynamics is described by a trio of quantum chemistry, scattering theory, and the time-dependent perturbation theory.